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Refugees Tell of Looting, Attacks

By

Yaroslav Trofimov

Updated Aug. 14, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

GORI, Georgia -- Throughout the day Wednesday, refugees poured out of this strategic Georgian city, recounting tales of atrocities committed after Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled in from the north.

Then, late Wednesday night, the commander of the Russian contingent, Gen. Vyacheslav Borisov, drove up in a Mercedes with Georgian license plates to the Russian army checkpoint at the entrance to the city and reported that everything is peaceful and under control.

"We are not going to shoot, we are not going to kill," Gen. Borisov, the deputy head of Russia's Air Assault Force, told a group of reporters that assembled at the checkpoint. "We came here simply to restore order. And now it is secure here -- see, I can drive around unarmed."

Just a day before the Russian takeover, Gori, the birthplace of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, was severely bombed by Russian planes. Shortly before Gen. Borisov's improvised news conference on Wednesday night, Russian soldiers at the checkpoint warned that reporters would be shot if they violated a blackout order by using cell phones or flashlights.

When Russian forces entered this city earlier on Wednesday, meeting no resistance from the demoralized Georgian military, they were accompanied by hundreds of irregular militias from the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia, witnesses said. President George W. Bush Wednesday accused the Russians of violating a cease-fire agreement brokered earlier in the week by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Russian officials insisted they were abiding by the six-point pact, which allows them undefined "extra peace-keeping measures" until international monitors are in place.

Russia launched the military operation in Georgia last week -- by far the biggest campaign beyond its own borders since the Soviet Union's collapse -- because of what it claimed was mass-scale ethnic cleansing and "genocide" in South Ossetia. While details of what happened there in the first hours of the conflict remain sketchy, the Ossetian militias -- largely unchecked by the Russian military -- now appear to be engaged in widespread reprisals against ethnic Georgian civilians here in Gori and nearby villages.

Gori lies in Georgia proper, well outside contested South Ossetia. A small truck that made it outside the village of Garedzhvari, near Gori, was crammed with dozens of men, women and children. "The Russians came first, then...the Ossetians who shot at anyone they saw," said Zurab Mouravi, who said he witnessed three neighbors killed Wednesday in Garedzhvari.

"The Ossetians walk into homes, take any valuables they want, and then burn the rest," said another villager, who identified himself as Givi.

Since Wednesday morning, thick black plumes of smoke rose from Gori as panicked residents -- including the doctors and staff of the local hospital -- fled to the capital of Tbilisi in packed cars and minivans.

"The Russians are looting everything in sight. The whole city is full of marauders," said Roland Bochiashvili. Russian soldiers stood by as irregulars held a Sky TV crew at gunpoint and took their car and equipment. A group of Polish journalists also had their car and equipment stolen. On the road to Tbilisi, a group of refugees angrily shouted at a lonely Georgian government official. "Where is our government? Where is our army?" wailed one distraught woman. "Who in the world is going to help us? Nobody cares."

Gen. Borisov denied a request by reporters to visit Gori after the Russian takeover, saying that this would disturb sleeping residents. He also dismissed the reports of atrocities perpetrated by Ossetian irregulars. "There were only two or three cars of Ossetians that came down. I personally confiscated their assault rifles, kicked them in their behinds, and told them that I will have them executed if they come again," he said. "There are hooligans anywhere -- we cannot control everything."

Fox News' Steve Harrigan reports from Gori, Georgia. Journalists there received a text message to leave the city and as they exited, Russian armored vehicles were rolling into Gori. Video courtesy of Fox News. (Aug. 13)

A group including the Estonian ambassador to Georgia, a French member of the European Parliament and noted French author and philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy Wednesday night was allowed past the first Russian checkpoint, just south of the main east-west highway traversing Georgia, but was kept away from the center of the city. "The part we were shown was a ghost town," Mr. Levy said as a Russian troop transporter screeched to a halt next to him, and Russian soldiers pushed him to the side of the road.

Gen. Borisov said the precipitous Georgian retreat from the city created a law and order problem here. Russian forces, he explained, had to intervene because Georgian troops "just ran away" and left behind "thousands of American-made assault rifles" and dozens of tanks. Introducing a Georgian official he said has been named the new governor of Gori, Gen. Borisov added that Russian forces will allow the Georgian police to redeploy in the city as soon as Thursday.

As Gen. Borisov assured that Russian soldiers have no intention of staying in Georgia beyond a day or two, the signal of the Georgian mobile phone network disappeared in the Gori vicinity. Instead, cell phones lit up with a message highlighting new realities on the ground. "Welcome to Russian network MegaFon," the message said. "Enjoy your stay!"

—Mitchell Prothero in Gori, Georgia, Marc Champion in Tbilisi, Georgia, and John W. Miller in Brussels contributed to this article.

Refugees Tell of Looting, Attacks

GORI, Georgia -- Throughout the day Wednesday, refugees poured out of this strategic Georgian city, recounting tales of atrocities committed after Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers rolled in from the north.